The American Society for Virology (ASV) seeks a multi-year block grant to provide partial support for pre-doctoral students, post-doctoral fellows and U.S. under-graduate teachers of virology to participate in the annual ASV scientific meetings from 2011 to 2015. The 2011 ASV meeting will be held July 16-20th at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The objective of this application is to provide partial support for junior virologists, with particular emphasis on participation by women and underrepresented minority virologists, to broadly enhance virology research and training. A total of $30,000 per year is requested to fund awards for pre- and post- doctoral trainees at $500 each and teachers at $1,000 each. Members of the ASV Graduate Student/Post-doctoral Travel Award Committee and the Education and Career Development Committee evaluate, respectively, the applications from students and fellows, who must submit an abstract describing their work for presentation in workshops or poster sessions, and from teachers, who submit an essay explaining the benefit of ASV meeting attendance for their teaching and mentoring activities. In addition to providing information about travel awards to its members, ASV announces the availability of travel awards to ~ 100 U.S. minority schools and institutions. Post-meeting evaluations that focus on the benefits of meeting participation are obtained by questionnaires from awardees. The ASV meeting provides an opportunity for U.S. junior scientists to meet and interact directly with established virologists and to learn in symposia, workshops, poster sessions, and special satellite symposia about the most recent developments in numerous virology research areas, including the viruses of humans, animals, plants, invertebrates and prokaryotes. The ASV annual meeting is one of the few general virology meetings with a wide breathe of offerings, which serve to enhance opportunities for cross- fertilization of ideas and technologies across the whole of the virus world. This scope spans topics such as viral genetics, structure, replication, pathogenesis, evolution and emergence, and disease control and prevention. Work presented at the ASV annual meetings has applications in many fields, including cardiology, gastroenterology, hematology, immunology, infectious diseases, neurology, oncology and pediatrics. It is the conviction of the ASV that supporting virology research in this way enhances investigative efforts required to prevent and treat viral diseases and positively impacts U.S. efforts in public health. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The American Society for Virology (ASV) has fostered the research training of junior virologists by encouraging their participation at its annual meetings for 30 years. The ASV annual meetings offer numerous opportunities to enhance collaborations and exchange ideas and technologies across the broad field of virology, and thus its meetings contribute to the health promotion and disease prevention objectives of the PHS "Healthy People 2010". As diseases caused by viruses continue to pose major threats to domestic and international health, continued training of junior investigators and U.S. undergraduate teachers in virology research afforded by attendance at the ASV annual meetings is of paramount importance.